Tiger Tongue Silver Money Or Leech Money

Posted by Peter on July 27th, 2009

This is a “HOI” or Tiger tongue silver money without marks from the Kingdom of Lanchng(Northeastern Thailand). This is dated 14th-19th Century, the material is Silver (approx. 60-75%) with copper/bronze. The size of a tiger tongue silver money is 25×115 mm and the weight is 117 grams

History:

The Kingdom of Lan Chang (Million Elephants) existed during 14th to 19th century and situated in today Lao and the northeastern part of Thailand. The kingdom produced and used own monetary sytem by casted silver “Hoi” and lower demonination “Lat” copper bronze ingot. The hand-stamping marks varies in several animalic symbol, presumably to indicate the town where it was produced. The number of marking varies from none up to ten or more. The size and weight also varies, as well as silver content can vary from 30% upto 80%. The marking sometimes exist in Thai alphabetic and numerical symbol. Below is another leech monies with marks